PHA-Exchange> B. Gates, micronutrients and transnationals

[Aviva]

Re: WSJ May 9, 2002 article about GAINBruce Cogill at bcogill at smtp.aed.org wrote:

Let them eat Cheez Whiz?

An international consortium led by Bill Gates's charitable foundation plans to address malnutrition around the world by offering economic incentives to Kraft, Procter & Gamble and other food companies to bring fortified processed foods and food commodities to impoverished nations.
The unusual program, funded mostly with $50 million from the Gates Foundation, has signed up Kraft Foods Inc., Procter & Gamble Co.,
H.J.Heinz and vitamin manufacturers Roche and BASF Corp. Participating companies would add nutrients, such as iron, folic acid and vitamin A, to food products they sell in poor countries and also provide governments and small food producers with technical assistance for fortifying food staples, such as rice, maize meal, wheat flour, oil, sugar, soy sauce and salt.
In exchange, the consortium, called the Global Alliance for Improved
Nutrition, or GAIN, would offer companies assistance in lobbying for
favorable tariffs and tax rates and speedier regulatory review of new products in targeted countries. The consortium also would give local governments money for initiatives to help create demand for fortified foods, including large-scale public relations campaigns or a governmental "seal of approval."
The effort, whose total funding is $70 million over five years, is set to be launched officially Thursday by Mr. Gates at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. The consortium includes U.N. agencies such as the World Bank, the World Health Organization and Unicef, the governments of the U.S., Japan, Germany and Canada, and global health and nutrition experts. Negotiations with some countries have already begun.
The presidents of Sri Lanka and Zambia are expected to be at the
announcement and are considering expanding current food- fortification programs under the new effort.

Facts about vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies in developing
countries:
* Two billion people suffer from anemia (mostly iron deficiency
anemia)
* One-fifth of maternal deaths are due to severe anemia
* An estimated 200 million children do not get enough vitamin A from
their daily diet 
* Without supplemental vitamin A, 250,000 would go blind each year
* Close to two billion people do not get enough iodine from their daily diet
* Iodine deficiency is the leading cause of preventable mental
retardation in the world
Source: GAIN, USAID
 
Some experts are troubled by the idea of Bill Gates and multinational food companies teaming up to reach into underdeveloped countries' food systems.
Critics dislike helping corporations peddle processed foods that,
despite added nutrients, still aren't especially healthy because of their fat, sugar or sodium content. Many see the GAIN program as just a heavy-handed way to ease corporate access to poor markets -- and one that won't do much to counter malnutrition.

This is a reductionist, single-nutrient techno-fix to a problem that is much more complex.   The main reason for
the lack of decent nutritional status is poverty.

The GAIN project is modeled after the billion-dollar global vaccine
program to inoculate poor children, also backed by the Gates foundation. The guiding principle is to bring public agencies and private industry together to address grossly inadequate basic health care for the poor resulting from failures of the marketplace. The foundation's approach is to fix problems using market mechanisms. GAIN officials say they hope to encourage national governments to
provide regulatory concessions for fortified foods, thereby reducing the costs for industry. 






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